5 interstate robbers held

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Three of the arrested men in Hazaribagh on Saturday. Picture by Vishvendu Jaipuriar

Hazaribagh, Jan. 5: A team of Sadar police today arrested five persons from Sindoor, around 5km from the Hazaribagh district headquarters, and claimed to have busted a gang that was involved in a number of robberies and loot in Bihar and Jharkhand.

The five accused — identified as Raju Das of Gaya, Tinku Lal (Ranchi), Ashwini Kumar (Hazaribagh), Teka Ram (Chatra) and Buddhan Baitha of Latehar — were nabbed after a 10 minute chase on the Ranchi-Patna highway (NH-33) as they tried to flee.

The police, who nabbed the robbers on the basis of a tip-off, later recovered three country-made revolvers, eight live cartridges and three mobile phones from the possession of the accused.

Producing the accused before reporters, Hazaribagh SP Manoj Kaushik claimed that the gang had made its way to the district to loot an affluent businessman. He identified Raju as the leader of the group and stated that the kingpin was supposed to be a close relative of notorious criminal and bank robber Madho Ravidas.

“Madho has been involved in a number of cases of loot and we suspect that he had help from Raju in them. A probe has been launched. So far we have been able to ascertain that Raju has 10 cases pending against him in Bihar alone,” Kaushik said.

He added that a special team of sadar police, led by officer in-charge Dinesh Kumar Singh, was formed after they received intelligence input that a gang of criminals were planning to target and loot a district-based businessman, who supplied materials to the railways.

“At the time of making the arrests the men did not realise that they had laid their hands on an inter-state gang which was involved in a number of cases of robberies. This is a proud achievement for us,” Kaushik said.

He claimed that the criminals had confessed to their involvement in the crime but refused to divulge details as they were yet to verify them.

“All the five accused have served time for loot and robbery and had been released from different jails of Jharkhand,” Kaushik said.

The SP added that there were four major bank robberies that were unsolved in the state and they strongly suspected that the gang might have been behind all or some of them. “We are interrogating the accused for more information,” he signed off.